‘Who are my masters in Singapore?’

HERE is an email which I received at 11.26 a.m. on June 18 thru my email address esdperez@gmail.com. I am reproducing it in full, because it is short, and unedited because I do not want the sender to accuse me of being biased in favor of some groups.

Mr. Perez,
Please find attached story which came out yesterday in some dailies.

This will give you an idea about your masters from Singapore.

May you enjoy their kind.

You are pathetic.

The sender gave no name but identified himself/herself only by his/her email address, which is abinaco24@gmail.com. I used the two personal pronouns because I do not know his/her gender unless he/she makes himself/herself public.

Well, the contents of the e-mail do not need elaboration. The emailer suggested that I read the “attached story.” He/she was apparently referring to the negative blogs that appeared in the internet and were intended to make the Singaporeans mad at Filipinos in their country.

Since I have already read the story early in the morning, I did not bother to read it again. What I think was more important was to respond to abinaco24@gmail.com.

I want abina24@gmail.com to know that as a reporter, I deal with my sources professionally—I still do today. For instance, to show respect, I never call, for instance, a lawyer by his or her nickname. Because I respect the profession, I address him or her “attorney” followed by his or her family name. If ever I needed any of my sources, who were not necessarily lawyers, for my story, I seldom went to see them in their offices. Instead, I used the most convenient gadget available – the telephone.

As for Hedy Yap Chua and Dr. Albert Hong Hin Kay, I would be honest with abinaco24@gmail.com. I met Ms. Hedy Yap Chua, a corporate stockholder of Alliance Select, during a meeting but not Dr. Hong. In that meeting, I posed only one question to her: When did you first feel that you were being cheated by the majority stockholders of the company?

I feel there is no need tell abinaco24@gmail.com the answer. Anyway, I did not do the story.

Let me go back to the sarcasm of abinaco@gmail.com “about your masters from Singapore.”

I want to assure abinaco24@gmail.com and the readers of The Manila Times that I have no masters in Singapore or even in the US and I do not intend to have one in either country or anywhere else in the world.

For the information of abinaco24@gmail.com, I write pieces in Due Diligencer based on postings of listed companies on the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange because I know the rule.

If only abinaco24@gmail.com would be more receptive to suggestion, I think he/she should be educated on the market and the Securities and Exchange Commission that regulates it: There is such a thing as premature disclosure that a journalist could be guilty of if only the SEC and PSE would be strict in monitoring the media coverage of the stock market. This rule also covers public relations practitioners.

By the way, what particular story in Due Diligencer has irritated you and your principals? Was it Wednesday’s piece in which I questioned why the Dees disclosed certain financial information to the Singaporeans and then were suing them for making said information public?

If this was the offending piece, then I suggest that the Dees make a proper disclosure of what they entrusted to the Singaporeans in confidence. Otherwise, the SEC and PSE should penalize them for disclosing material information only to a select group. What happened to the public stockholders of Alliance Select? Why ignore them? Don’t they have as much right to information as the majority stockholders, who are the Dees, and the significant minority owners, who are the Singaporeans?

Of course, the Dees know better because they are going to court and suing Dr. Hong and Yap-Chua for sharing with the public what they have given them in confidence. When has full disclosure of material facts become a crime? This is the corporate suit that is worth watching because it could boomerang on them.

The SEC examiners and PSE market watchers should be more vigilant of the goings-on inside the boardroom of Alliance Select.

By the way, abinaco24@gmail.com should be informed that Due Diligencer is not and has never been for sale. Am I being pathetic?